Abstract
Energy is a basic factor input embodied in the production of goods and services. The rapid growth of trade between Belt and Road countries calls for the study of bilateral embodied energy trade between them. Using the Eora input-output database in 2015, this paper accounts the embodied energy trade between Belt and Road countries, followed by an investigation of the factors influencing the embodied energy trade through a gravity model, which is different from the conventional decomposition analysis. We find that the main bilateral embodied flow paths are from South Korea to China, China to South Korea, Singapore to China, Ukraine to Russia, and Malaysia to Singapore. 5% embodied energy flow paths account for 80% of the total bilateral embodied energy flow volume between Belt and Road countries. The gravity model results indicate that GDP per capita and population are the key drivers of bilateral embodied energy trade, while the industrial share of GDP is negatively related to the trade. Energy intensity, especially that of importing countries, plays a crucial role in reducing the bilateral embodied energy flow. These results are useful in the policymaking of sustainable development for the Belt and Road Initiative.
Analysis on the progressive motivation of carbon emissions growth in China using structural decomposition analysis and structural path decomposition methods
